NBA Playoff Preview

Previewing the first-round series between the Portland Trail Blazers and Oklahoma City Thunder with shot charts, assist maps, offensive style charts and expected win probabilities. Shot charts Aside from the stellar play of Damian Lillard, the story for the Blazers heading into the playoffs is the injury status of CJ McCollum and Jusuf Nurkic. According

Previewing the first-round series between the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers with shot charts, assist maps, offensive style charts and expected win probabilities. Shot charts In a tremendous underdog story, the Golden State Warriors once again finished with the number one seed in the Western Conference playoffs. As always, they were led by

The regular season ended with both the Thunder and the Blazers hobbling into the playoffs and neither guaranteed much postseason success. Portland lost its best player, cruelly, to a gruesome leg fracture in the 55th minute of a late-March game while Oklahoma City clawed for every win down the stretch, taxing its players in the

Previewing the first-round series between the Milwaukee Bucks and Detroit Pistons with shot charts, assist maps, offensive style charts and expected win probabilities. Shot charts The chart presents the approximate shooting percentages for Giannis and the remainder of the Bucks’ roster from less than 16 feet and from beyond the arc. It is important to

Previewing the first-round series between the Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic with shot charts, assist maps, offensive style charts and expected win probabilities. Shot charts In the first season without DeMar DeRozan and Dwane Casey, the new-look Toronto Raptors have ripped off another excellent season, finishing with 58 wins. Following an increasing trend from the

James Harden stood, camouflaged head to toe, in the middle of the visitor’s locker room in Sacramento. The Houston Rockets had just bulldozed the Sacramento Kings, tying the all-time record (which they set) for made 3s in a game in the process (they broke that record only a few days later). For these Rockets, it

I am currently at the library. The library is named after some local hero. His last name is or was Porter. I don’t know if he’s living or dead. I don’t know anything about him. What does any of this have to do with Giannis Antetokounmpo and the number one-seeded Milwaukee Bucks? I don’t know.

The first round of the 2019 NBA playoffs features a bevy of intriguing, star-studded matchups. Thanks to some late-season luck, the Denver Nuggets escaped with the Western Conference’s No. 2 overall seed, which allows them to dodge both the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets until the conference finals. But before looking that far ahead,

Previewing the first-round series between the Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets with shot charts, assist maps, offensive style charts and expected win probabilities. Shot charts While it’s well established that the post-deadline starting five for the Sixers has more talent than the rest of the league (non-Warriors division) with a +20.3 points per 100 possessions

Previewing the first-round series between the Boston Celtics and Indiana Pacers with shot charts, assist maps, offensive style charts and expected win probabilities. Shot charts In the chart below, Jayson Tatum’s shots (as of April 4) are displayed in terms of relative density by distance. The shot areas are broken up as less than eight

Last year in this space, we introduced a metric called Wins Above Age-Derived Expectation, or WAADE. It measures exactly what it sounds like: how many more wins an NBA team actually gets than you would have expected them to based on their minutes-weighted age. In introducing the metric, we highlighted several teams that stood out

Previewing the first-round series between the Denver Nuggets and San Antonio Spurs with shot charts, assist maps, offensive style charts and expected win probabilities. Shot charts The Denver Nuggets’ remarkable season has come on the backs of center-point Nikola Jokic leading them to the seventh-best offense in the league and veteran big man Paul Milsap

Previewing the first-round series between the Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz with shot charts, assist maps, offensive style charts and expected win probabilities. Shot charts James Harden has shot a truly unprecedented number of step back 3-pointers this year — approximately one out of every three in the entire NBA was taken by Harden. He

If the Denver Nuggets do not win a title this season, a near certainty according to FiveThirtyEight’s NBA projections, it will happen in a predictable way. In four games of a seven-game series, an opponent will score more points than they will. This will happen because the Nuggets will miss some shots they often make.

The pressure ratchets up on everyone in the NBA playoffs, but these players, in particular, will have everything to prove. The playoffs not only determine who wins the championship each year; it’s also where legacies are formed. Otherwise great players are derided if they are unable to raise their game in the postseason or lead their

The Thunder have been slipping as the regular season winds down but they still have everything they need for a historic playoff run. The Oklahoma City Thunder seem a bit stuck right now. They have two of the best players in the NBA and are clearly good enough to make the playoffs and give opponents

The Houston Rockets season got off to a rocky start but they’re rounding into form as the playoffs start. Here’s why they can accomplish what they couldn’t last season, and win it all. The Rockets were a hamstring injury and a few 3-point misses away from a berth in the Finals last season, and a

The Toronto Raptors have a history of following impressive regular seasons with playoff disasters. Here’s why this season could be different. The Raptors have looked very good in Kawhi Leonard’s first year with the team. Thanks to internal development along with a handful of other acquisitions over the last year, this Raptors team looks very

The Warriors haven’t looked like themselves for much of this season but they’re still the presumptive favorites. Here’s why they can win it all, again. Despite only intermittently looking like a great team this season, the Golden State Warriors are still the presumptive favorites to win the NBA Finals in June. Even though several other

This season has not gone the way the Boston Celtics were hoping but anything can happen in the playoffs. The Celtics were expected to be one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. After last year’s run to the Conference Finals, it was assumed that a healthy roster and another year of development for